NTR Labs

Please describe your company and your position there.

Our company develops and implements medical technologies and provides medical services to legal entities and individuals. I am the founder and a licensed doctor.

For what projects/services did your company hire NTR Labs, and what were your goals?

When Carrying out medical activities in the field of rehabilitation, palliative care and long-term care, we faced the problem of automating control over the actions of medical personnel and assistants. Working with NTR Labs, we developed the idea of using computer .

How did you select NTR Labs and what were the deciding factors?

On the recommendation of Tomsk software developers.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

The project started from scratch. Together with the developers and analysts of NTR Labs, we developed a technical description for the prototype. We decided to use an iterative approach. When it was necessary to collect material for marking images and training a neural network, NTR Labs promptly provided the connection of video equipment where needed.

It should be noted that this was not a trivial task, since the collection was carried out in intensive care units. At the same time, using the algorithm developed by NTR Labs, all the data obtained were depersonalized on the spot. NTR also developed a cloud platform that allowed people from different places, with different qualifications, to participate in markup, which provided great savings. The platform made it possible not only to carry out markup, but also to conduct supervision, quality control, and calculate salaries for markers.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

The project team consisted of about eleven people, but people came and went depending on currently needed skills. At the same time, we had a stable project manager who was our direct and permanent contact person. Project Manager, two front-end developers, backend developer, two data scientists, Telegram bot developer, system administrator for collecting datasets, two system analysts, and two marketers.

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

Now we are confident when any staff are involved with our patients, because we know that we can control key points. We have embarked on clinical studies of how our product can affect the survival of critically ill patients and the number of complications resulting from their treatment. We hope to be able to replicate our development as a service in many hospitals around the world.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timelines.

The project was managed using standard project management tools. A distinctive feature was the quick and direct involvement of heads of departments and divisions to resolve complex issues. NTR’s financial management made it possible to quickly and without conflict coordinate and implement project financing.

We didn’t feel the distance, because a significant block of development was carried out and managed by employees from other cities. All instant messengers and project management systems that are convenient for us are used by NTR Labs personnel.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

First of all, the breadth of competencies: from the creation of electronic devices to the development of ML algorithms and programming in any language. I was also impressed by the decency and responsibility of the employees, regardless of their position. The founders and HR organization deserve a lot of credit.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Before we worked with NTR Labs, we had experienced the cooperation of several other software developers. From the point of view of work organization and competencies, this is the best company we have ever worked with. That said, I would like to see a little more creativity, as well as a wider range of partners. Launching new software on the market is a difficult task, where successful networking helps a lot.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Founded in 2017, Blockgeeks quickly became the premier source for blockchain and cryptocurrency education. Whether it was our world-class course catalog, our developer outreach, or our hackathon and lecture presence - Blockgeeks was everywhere. My role was somewhere combined with CTO/Product Manager.

For what projects/services did your company hire NTR Labs?

Take on development from an initial WordPress website and build a scalable community and learning management platform.

What were your goals for this project?

Speed up the development and lead the growth of the rapidly growing market. This has started with a few specific requests: Current community and course websites refreshment and UX improvement Bounty program Establish infrastructure and SDLC process Zendesk integration And went on as an ongoing development for two years.

How did you select NTR Labs?

We knew each other with Nick for a while, and I have heard that his company is doing a good job, so I went on to try and have not been disappointed.

Describe the project in detail.

The services provided included software development as per our ever-changing development plans and DevOps.

What was the team composition?

It has started with 4 developers and a business analyst on demand. The designer and the team lead were in-house. Later as the field iced, the team was reduced to 2 developers and as such was stable for almost 2 years.

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Our LMS solution was developed and launched early. CD/CI and weekly development sprints made product development efficient.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The project management was on my side, but the communication was very good after the initial setup period.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I had direct contact with all management levels whenever I needed to and that has led to fast problem resolution (not that we had many in the second year).

Are there any areas for improvement?

It is all good as is.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Our company provides multiple solutions in the data management space. I am the CEO.

For what projects/services did your company hire NTR Labs, and what were your goals?

NTR helped us develop a recreation management application for IOS and Android that helps people who play in private poker games to setup, manage and track players and upcoming games.

How did you select NTR Labs and what were the deciding factors?

We had worked with NTR on several project over the last 10+ years and they have always been super helpful and reliable with their work. They did not disappoint us and we had another great experience getting the app done.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

This was a mobile app for both IOS and Android. We worked closely with NTR to provide the specification and features required for the app. They delivered us a fully working application and guided us throughout the entire process.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We worked with one project manager and two developers.

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

NTR pushed us to release an MVP so that we could get into real life scenarios rather than develop forever, spend more money that we need and never get a working product into production. After MVP was released, they helped us support and enhance the app as features were requested by our user base.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timelines.

We’ve worked with a lot of teams and NTR’s project management was amazing. We had daily communication and once they grasped the app’s concept, they really helped push the project forward from beginning to end. But for my constant feature creeps, we would have been ahead of schedule.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Many companies we’ve worked with have good sales but cannot complete the work. NTR backs up their work and will do whatever is needed to get the job done. This is the 4th project with NTR and we will continue to use them in the future.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

No. They did a great job!

Please describe your company and your position there.

SelfieApp is a social app startup. I am the CEO.

For what projects/services did your company hire NTR Labs?

To recreate SelfieApp using a neural network, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. The goal was to replace the background of the selfie image.

What were your goals for this project?

The solution had to reliably reproduce the functionality of our old system that it replaced. It needed to be built into a mobile app to replace our legacy software that was becoming increasingly unstable.

How did you select NTR Labs?

NTR was recommended to us by another agency. There were several other possible suppliers, but most of them were disqualified due to inexperience or perceived total cost.

As the project was such a high priority, it was important to select a results-oriented partner that was equally committed to reliable customer support.

Describe the project in detail.

They designed, developed, customized and launched a new selfie background replacement solution. The project began with a joint discussion, which allowed us to reach mutual understanding regarding the development tasks and goals.

After we approved the workflows, wireframes, and layouts, the actual development started in short sprints. The functional versions were ready for user testing and feedback every week. Improvements were made during each sprint thanks to key suggestions from the NTR developers.

What was the team composition?

The project team consisted of about five people, although some people came and went depending on needed skills. At the same time, we had a stable project manager who was our direct and permanent contact person.

Our business scenario convinced them to offer a flexible development approach that would allow us to quickly create and test different versions of the desired solution.

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Thanks to a new approach, it became possible to improve the quality of the results.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The project management was very impressive, especially when compared to other vendors. NTR’s team regularly met deadlines and always reported delays well in advance. An unexpected turnaround never threatened to stop critical progress. We communicated solely on Skype, Jira and GitHub.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The high level of qualifications and professionalism of the performers was impressive. A very effective project management system.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Everything was great.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm a chief specialist of our Evraz branch in Novokuznetsk, Russia.

For what projects/services did your company hire NTR Labs, and what were your goals?

With NTR we had and have several projects. Most of them are aimed at mobile technology. For example, a mobile application that displays data from our sources shows in a table form, there are graphs on them, it receives alarms from our enterprises and sends push notifications.

Also displays real-time video from cameras in mines on a mobile device’s screen. The audience of the application is the employees of our company throughout Novokuznetsk.

There is also an application for all Evraz employees through which you can order the necessary personnel documents, find out company news, get in touch with the management, go through surveys on behalf of the management to improve working conditions, and so on.

The main thing is that we wanted to see all the statistics of our enterprises in a convenient form on the screen of ordinary smartphones that everyone has. Which is useful for any manager of a mine or plant, as well as for any employee

How did you select NTR Labs and what were the deciding factors?

First, NTR won the tender, their proposal was the most optimal. Later they won several more tenders, and often we try to work with them directly, without any competitions.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

They designed, developed, configured, and launched several new mobile apps. Colleagues from NTR quickly respond to our requests and wishes. This applies to design, and the intricacies of development, and amendments to the original tasks. When our company switched to the Agile methodology, NTR supported this initiative. Now we are working with them on it

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

There were several teams. Each of them had a project manager for operational communication on projects, an analyst, testers, and a designer (if needed). Of course, frontend and backend developers. People could change depending on tasks

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

After the release, for example, of an application with statistics on the operation of mines and factories, the entire management team was able to quickly respond to the implementation of plans, incidents at enterprises and to monitor work processes in real time. In the long run, this brings the company significant benefits

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timelines.

Very prompt interaction with the project manager. Very effective. The setting of tasks always gets its implementation. Occasionally, when necessary, we met with programmers or a designer to get advice on the implementation of our wishes. Used mail, Skype, Jira, GitHub, Zoom and sometimes in urgent cases phone and Whatsapp

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Flexibility. Both in the sense of changing requirements in the process, and in bureaucratic moments. If new tasks went beyond the framework of the project, NTR offered the optimal solution for the speediest implementation without losing quality

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Move their office closer to us. It is clear that this is impossible and we are used to contacting via the Internet, but it would be convenient. :)

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a freelance entrepreneur.

What challenge were you trying to address with NTR Labs?

We were working on a product that allows people to search for car warranties. It was a web-optimized landing page that allows people to submit requests based on the year, make, and model of their vehicles. I needed something built quickly that was also high-quality. Because I was funding the project myself, I wanted a reasonable cost as well.

What was the scope of their involvement?

I first found a website that was similar to what I wanted to build. I marked it up using PowerPoint to describe to NTR Labs what my site would look like and how it would be different from the example I chose.

NTR Labs took my rudimentary mockup and made it look much better using their designer. Over a few weeks, they built it into a fully functional website with content, beautiful images, and the backend functionality we needed.

What is the team composition?

I worked with three people: a designer, a technical lead, and my main contact, Nick (CEO).

How did you come to work with NTR Labs?

They reached out to me; I’m not sure why or how. After a few conversations with them, I found that I really liked Nick and met him in person. He seemed like a straightforward, upfront person, and I had a lot of confidence in him, so I took a chance.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project ran from February to May 2019. It probably took them 2–3 months to establish the basic site. I wasn’t in a hurry.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

It was terrific. The product was exactly what I wanted it to be — probably even better. Even external partners are very impressed by its design and functionality. The overall effect on my business has been very positive. I’m working on a deal right now where I get to use some of that functionality.

How did NTR Labs perform from a project management standpoint?

They perfectly met all my expectations; in fact, I’d say they surpassed them. The quality of work was better than I expected. We communicated by email and Skype, but mainly email to lay things out in writing.

What did you find most impressive about them?

First, I liked their transparency about pricing. The price they give you at first is what you pay unless the project changes drastically. It’s also very competitive. Second, the functionality was very, very good. There were no weird bugs or surprises in the software. Also, from a design standpoint, I was pleasantly surprised that they had an in-house designer, and they do spectacular work.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Off the top of my head, I can’t come up with anything.

Any advice for potential customers?

NTR Labs' team is offshore, which may make some folks hesitant. They might fear communication issues and time zone differences. However, NTR Labs' team was flexible regarding my schedule, and they speak perfect English. It was never a challenge for me.

Nick comes to the US a few times a year. I’d recommend you meet him in person or schedule a phone call or video call. He inspires a lot of confidence and is upfront and straightforward about the capabilities of NTR Labs.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Technopolice supplies equipment and develops technologies for engineering production since 1997. I am the Chief Information Officer.

For what projects/services did your company hire NTR Labs?

The rapid growth of the number of projects and customers has caused the need to develop and implement customer and order management systems. The specifics of our activity did not allow us to implement the available products without its deep modernization at that time, so we decided to order custom software development according to our requirements.

What were your goals for this project?

The purpose of the development was the automation of communication processes with customers and the ability of Technopoliсe employees to work with a single database from different offices. Subsequently, this decision made it possible to quickly transfer employees to remote work from home when pandemic started.

How did you select this vendor?

We chose among the vendors that were recommended to us by our partners. NTR Labs has offered the best conditions for the cost, timing and solution architecture.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

NTR has fully designed, developed and implemented a CRM system for us and still continues to improve and maintain it. New functionality continues to be added at our request.

We are very pleased and even a little surprised that the system developed 15 years ago continues to function smoothly and despite changing business processes flexibly adapts to them and satisfies all our requirements including security and performance.

What was the team composition?

We communicate with the Project Manager, who works with the developers.

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

The system was developed on time taking into account all our requirements and is still our main customer relationship automation system.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Project management was very impressive, especially compared to other vendors. We communicated exclusively with Skype, Email, GitLab.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Since the system is critical for business - the speed of reaction to our requests is important to us - NTR Labs provides fast and clear communication, practically eliminating system failures.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are IT-services provider for large food company in Russia. I'm a product manager responsible for an e-commerce project with 1m orders a year.

For what projects/services did your company hire NTR Labs?

As e-commerce, we're always in search for different ways to improve our sales. One of them on the plate was a recommendation system. We had started with the tests for 3rd-party solution, but quickly realized its bad fit for the business we have. So we decided to create our own system.

What were your goals for this project?

We expected the system to give the reasonable recommendations for our customers, what else they could order. So average check should increase, not suffering the number of orders. And our own recommendation system should provide the same or better results, comparing to the market leaders we've tested.

How did you select this vendor?

NTR Labs was recommended to us by several experts, based on their previous experience in recommendation systems. First contacts showed their deep background (real 'know-how') and desire to help.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

They designed, developed and helped us to integrate the new recommendation system, based on the open-source ML-solutions. Also they guided us how to train the neural net and test the recommendations based on A/B-tests.

What was the team composition?

The project team had about 7-10 people, with one stable project manager and others joining based on the need: developers, data analysts, recommendation system experts.

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

The developed solution was launched in the production environment in about 1 month after the work started. It quickly showed the same influence on metrics as market-leading solution we've tested at the same time. Testing additional hypothesis lead us to the 7%-10% increase on average check, keeping the number of orders intact. So all goals for the project were reached.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Project management was very good. All targets were met on time, any delays were communicated in advance.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They offered us the complete package: from expertise and knowledge, to development, implementation and analytics. Technical things were communicated in 'easy' language, so everyone understood.

Are there any areas for improvement?

My only suggestion for improvement would be to better track the implementation on the client side and our mistakes. We'd forgot to put in production one developed service, so it took some time to find the reason of the strange behavior. Until we realized we're talking about slightly different architectures.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I was working for a UK-based SaaS company developing a financial modeling suite for CFOs and financial advisors. I worked for that company between 2016–2017, and my role there was COO.

What challenge were you trying to address with NTR Labs?

We were looking to speed up development to launch a spin-off product. We didn’t have the internal capacity, so we outsourced development to NTR Labs.

What was the scope of their involvement?

NTR Labs developed the entire MVP from scratch. We brought them on at the prototyping phase. We had a UI/UX designer on our side, along with myself, as the product owner/manager.

NTR provided us a small team to go through prototyping, application design, architecture, and coding, to get it to a phase where we could launch it. When the project was completed, they handed over the entire application and source code to our core dev team, and we worked with them for support and knowledge transfer from there.

They built the frontend application using AngularJS. The backend was provided by us, and was the core of our main platform.

What is the team composition?

NTR provided us a team of four people.

How did you come to work with NTR Labs?

I knew their principal, who had a very good reputation on the market. Several of my clients from my former company had worked with him, so I had a very strong trust in NTR Labs' capabilities. We had a few initial meetings, and found that they worked quite lean and agile, and they were ready to work with our existing code base. We didn’t do a lot of casting; we just decided to go with NTR Labs after a few meetings.

How much have you invested with them?

The cost was around $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with NTR Labs between October 2016–September 2017.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

I’d rate them a solid 4.5 out of 5. They were really agile, and they were willing to include our team in the entire development cycle. We worked effectively as one team, and we could change course effectively. There were some late-stage changes in the specifications, which weren’t a problem. NTR was open to adapt and change the course.

The culture and business ethics were very high, and their team is very experienced. They have a distributed team between a few cities, and they were able to provide us the right kind of management support, along with the developers themselves.

How did NTR Labs perform from a project management standpoint?

They mainly used Jira for that project. We also had GitHub on our side, to keep track of all the features in the backlog. They were on schedule.

What did you find most impressive about them?

From my experience, ethics was what distinguishes them from other providers. There was a person leading the team on their end, and they were able to compensate for the extra time spent by their team. It was a time and materials project, and they didn’t charge us for the extra time that was necessary for the transfer of knowledge. NTR is a very customer-oriented company, and that’s the main reason I chose them on my next project as well.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There’s nothing I can come up with immediately.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

When staffing the project, it’s important to ensure that the project management team is interested in the particular domain the client is working on. We had a slight lack of understanding in the domain initially. That’s understandable, given that the application we were making was quite new and unique. Having someone with a bit more of a finance background would’ve helped.

That was pretty much the same story when I got them onboard on my next project, when I was in a different company. Even though we did have a project manager with industry background, the fact that we were doing something new and unique meant that it took more time to get them up to speed. I advise spending more time at the project setup phase, making sure that they have a good understanding of the overall industry and what we’re trying to achieve.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re a GPS-enabled networking platform that delivers stories based on location. I’m the co-founder and CEO.

What challenge were you trying to address with NTR Labs?

We had an MVP of our product, but we wanted to upgrade the platform and develop a new app that would be compatible with both Google Play and the App Store.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our team provided them with wireframes and mockups, and they delivered three different platforms: a web-based browser platform, a desktop application, and a mobile-compatible platform. The platforms allow for content creation. Users can not only take a tour, but they can generate their own tours and edit them.

What is the team composition?

We had a team of 2–3 developers. Eugen (CTO), who served as our project manager, was our main point of contact.

How did you come to work with NTR Labs?

I was referred to Nick (CEO) by a friend and advisor of mine.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $55,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together mid-2014 and the engagement wrapped up in 2018. They still provide ongoing maintenance on an as-needed basis.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

I’ve been very happy with the partnership. Nick stays in touch, and whenever he visits, we typically meet. Not only have they provided us with great technical support, but they’ve also given us moral and emotional support through the ups and downs of our company. They go above and beyond in all ways.

How did NTR Labs perform from a project management standpoint?

Eugen, our project manager, is amazing. They use Pivotal Tracker. From the get-go, we could tell that they followed lean startup principles. They asked great questions about our business needs. I respected their ability to push back and make you reflect on the motivations behind your requirements.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’ve been impressed by their communication, the continuity of their service, and the methodology that they use.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I think they were going through some turnover with their developers. There was just one instance where the ramp-up was delayed due to that staffing change.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure you become familiar with the tools they use, like Pivotal Tracker. Staying on top of consistent communication put us in line with project progress.